Shining a bright light into the dark corners of the shadow-world of literary scams, schemes, and pitfalls. Also providing advice for writers, industry news and commentary, and a focus on the weird and wacky things that happen at the fringes of the publishing world.

January 7, 2013

Global Talk Radio: How to Waste Money and Fail to Influence People

You'd think that dodgy publishers, publicists, and others would know better than to spam Writer Beware. But no. Disproving the frequent spammer claim that their email lists are carefully targeted, I get quite a substantial number of advertisements, press releases, and solicitations.

Today's solicitation (which I've reproduced below) comes from Global Talk Radio, an Internet radio network. It encourages me to sign up for a "promotional interview" that "might open doors to new opportunities."

On GTR's front page, there's a screenshot of its traffic ranking from Ranking.com, under the headline "Global Talk Radio's traffic surges!" The screenshot appears to show a big jump--from the 180,000 range into the 100,000 range over the course of a few months. However, if you look closely, you'll see that these figures are from 2009 and early 2010. 2012 figures from Ranking.com peg GTR right down around 180,000 again. Three years later, its audience hasn't actually grown at all.

Audiences for individual shows will vary, obviously. But overall, buying an interview on GTR is not likely to get you a lot of exposure. As I say so often here and elsewhere--there are better uses for your promotional dollar.

You do get to download a FREE MP3 of your interview, which you can post on your website. To those who don't know how GTR works, it will look satisfyingly official--right alongside your faux award from Reader's Favorite and your claim of Amazon bestsellerdom based on your #2 position on the Spiritual Fantasy Novels for Teenage Misfits list.

Here's a new and FUN way to promote your book!

Talk about it "on the air" in your own words... reach a highly-targeted audience and you might open doors to new opportunities! By some estimates, there are over 1,000,000 million books and e-books published every year (that's 2700 per day) -- A RADIO INTERVIEW CAN SET YOU APART FROM EVERYONE ELSE!

Global Talk Radio produces 5-minute and 10-minute professional interviews with authors and entrepreneurs for our top-rated "In The News" program. Interviews are pre-recorded by telephone, and you supply "talking points" to help focus the conversation on what is most important. Recent guests included Emmy-nominated writer/producer Dr. Kenneth Atchity, authors Melvin Abercrombie and Kimball Carr, health expert Dr. Herb Ross, executive success coach Susan Freeman, and business owner Cristine Berensohn. You could be next!

Your promotional interview includes:

A professional interview, recorded by phone

Your interview is posted on our station's site indefinitely

Your archive is fed into Google and other search engines via keywords

You will also receive "honorable mention" on our home page

GTR will hyperlink your archive to a website or web page of your choice

You can download a FREE MP3 copy of the interview

THIS WEEK ONLY!! Send us your picture or graphic, and we'll post it with a link back to your website!

Redleg, it's like Amazon rankings; being number 2 means there's only one ahead of you, being number 100,000 means there's only 99,999 ahead of you, and being number 180,000 means there's only 179,999 ahead of you. So for a brief shining moment, they rose from being the 180,000th most looked at to the dizzying heights of being the 100,000th most looked at. By the crappy Ranking.com algorithm.

I was interviewed on GTR at no cost a couple of years back. I saw no actual benefit from it and could not even access the "aired" interview despite the many links I was sent...so I have no proof it aired at all.

As a talk show host on Blog Talk Radio, I want to say that I don't charge for my shows. I don't think that's right or fair. Then again, I do reviews as well as helping with blog tours. I don't ask for any payment. If I did, I'd be rich. :)